


Throw me in the Deep End

by greyish



Category: teen wolf - Fandom
Genre: BAMF!Stiles, Baby's First Fanfic, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, F/M, Girl!Derek, Girl!Stiles, The Hales are Alive, bamf!Lydia, overtones of abuse, peter is a creep, pretty much everyone is a girl except scott and peter, puppy!scott, some violence, the hales are poor, unbeta'd so please excuse any and all mistakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 19:39:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4678877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyish/pseuds/greyish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There was a time when Talia would have handled a werewolf problem like this. These days, all supernatural incidences beyond the level of minor prank-spells and threatened exposure were Argent Problems. Argent Problems meant pack-hunter co-operation, which Talia hated. Allison was the only one in her team who knew this, knew that the Hales commonly referred to her father as Chris Argent and his band of merry-vigilante murders and other, less polite variations. "</p><p>Since the Hales and the Argents made an alliance, the Hales have been at the beck and call of a group that hate them. When Peter calls in from a town over, tipping them off to a violent omega with a human in tow, they all go out to hunt them down together. Things do not go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silklegend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silklegend/gifts).



> So about a week ago, I wrote the first chapter of this fic and read it to silklegend, who said "this is going to be your Idris Elba". So, since it's her birthday on the 30th I thought I'd finish it before then. Which is why I'm posting a 6841 unbeta'd monstrosity. The things I do for love. Happy birthday persimon rabbit.

Allison has spent enough time around Erica, full moon and otherwise, to be able to tell when she’s furious in wolf mode. It’s so sad, because Allison is glad the Hales treat Erica with so much love and concern, as someone who is to be cared for as much as any other member of the family, but for fucks sake could they not tell that treating her like a child just for being recently turned was perfectly calculated to make her do something fundamentally stupid? Awful flashbacks of all the times she’d set Erica off, intentionally or otherwise, come rushing back. She sighs internally, trying not to watch as Erica whines and jumps a little, attempting and failing to subtly dart out from between the wolves flanking her like bodyguards. Allison has to stop focusing on her. Leadership is still new to her and she knows that the whole team is still adjusting, that her father is nervous despite all his faith. Even if it’s messy at first, he’d said, even if it’s strange, this is your birthright. This is what you’ve trained for. You’re ready.  
This is the messy part, Allison thinks, because the whole team, werewolves and hunters, are a mess of tension and aggression that was getting misdirected all over the place. Allison keeps her face stoic, but she’s hoping to God this wolf turns out to be an easy take down.  
An Omega, Talia had briefed her. Peter says he’s responsible for the animal attack in his territory recently. The pack tracked them to the border, now it’s our responsibility. She had offered, as she always did, to take care of it herself.  
There was a time when Talia would have handled a werewolf problem like this. These days, all supernatural incidences beyond the level of minor prank-spells and threatened exposure were Argent Problems. Argent Problems meant pack-hunter co-operation, which Talia hated. Allison was the only one in her team who knew this, knew that the Hales commonly referred to her father as Chris Argent and his band of merry-vigilante murders and other, less polite variations. Since Erica had told her, Allison couldn’t stop seeing it, couldn’t stop looking back on interactions once normal and now laced with the assumption that the Hales where lucky the hunters let them stay in Beacon Hills, lucky to be kept alive, and constantly on call. Lucky- she thinks, lucky to be treated like paroles on death row, with the jury on their back every day to keep them in line, polite and ready to serve. Relations had always been tense, but since the fire they had escalated into downright vicious, and Allison didn’t like vicious. She thrived on a good fight, but this constant backlash against the Hales to keep them in their place felt way far too much like bullying.  
Things where going to change, but the process was already riling up her team. She felt their trust in her as a solid thing, like so many threads she had to keep pulled tight around her every time she said or did something that caused them to slacken.  
“I’ll go in first.” Allison says, kneeling in front of Talia and addressing her directly. Her team shifts behind her, the threads shifting in outrage. She ignores them. This was always going to be a messy transition. “Try to talk to the girl that’s with him, see if I can get her out of the way. Then the rest of you come in. Okay?”  
There’s a human with them Talia had said, she cares about him, apparently.  
Instead of waiting for a response Allison squares her shoulders and breaks in through the locked door. She hears a girl shout something- a single, nonsensical word. There’s a blur of motion rushing under the bed and a girl standing in the center of the room, assault rifle trained unwaveringly on Allison’s chest. An ancient television is playing The Little Mermaid in the background. Allison pauses. The girl is older than she expected, in her early twenties. She’s pale with moles coving her face and a buzz cut. She’s deceptively skinny, but Allison recognizes the tone of her muscles, under nourished but not under trained, she thinks. Still, overall she looks like a confusingly attractive kitten. A confusingly attractive vulnerable kitten clutching a gun in the face of a situation she can’t handle.  
Allison took a step forward as she met the girl’s eyes, then stops cold. Not a victim, her mind whispers as the girl stares her down, a fighter.  
“I’m Allison” She says calmly, “Argent. You’re Stiles?”  
“No.” The girl, who definitely is Stiles, replies flatly. “No, you can’t have him. You can’t hurt him. You have to leave.”  
The wolves start slinking into the room, followed by the rest of her team. Stiles glances at them briefly and returns her gaze to Allison, unflinching.  
“You can’t fight seven hunters. Let alone a pack of monsters.” Chris says calmly from behind her shoulder. Allison feels herself tense. She can’t help it. Stiles smiles suddenly, a strange flickering smile so brief that Allison barely catches it. Then Stiles shooting a round of- not bullets, but something, Allison doesn’t have time to think because suddenly everything is in motion. Stiles is on the ground amidst the wolves and there’s a loud smashing sound, the glint of a dagger and then Erica has been stabbed and Allison is lunging forward and the wolves are all over Stiles, Talia roaring furiously, and the hunters are attacking the wolves and Erica is fucking bleeding- And then Allison sees two figures, one human and one wolf, leap out the newly broken window and run.


	2. Fucking Volvo Drivers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles curses the fucking people who had not only tried to kill Scott, but had forced her to hijack a sketchy van to escape because one of them had blocked her fucking car with their douchebag Volvo.

Stiles curses the fucking people who had not only tried to kill Scott, but had forced her to hijack a sketchy van to escape because one of them had blocked her fucking car with their douchebag Mercedes. She’d left two full bags of clothes and a weeks worth of canned food in the car they’d driving into Beacon Hills. Stiles takes a breath and starts listing the things she still has. Scott. Her sanity (more or less). Five thousand dollars in cash saved up over four years from selling fake IDs and other forged documents around her high school. The birth certificates she’d made for herself and Scott. Her fake drivers license and registration, which wouldn’t cut it for a van goddamn it. She takes another deep breath and expels slowly. Scott. The money. ID’s. Her wits. They’d gotten out of worse situations. They’d be fine.   
Scott was whimpering in the back seat. Stiles gently hummed Under the Sea, counting down the hours until sunrise. Why, out of all the Disney movies he could have chosen, The Little Mermaid turned out to be the only goddamn movie that will ever calm down Scott, was beyond her but hey: whatever works. She much preferred to think about keeping Scott calm than think about keeping herself calm as she ponders their increasingly limited options. She knows she can probably get them out of Beacon Hills, but where next? They’d gotten this far in a series of stolen vehicles, but could they get across state lines? What if Peter sent followers after them there, too? He’d managed to send some here- where his greatest rival pack   
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Stiles thought. Peter. Peter the liar. Of course, of fucking course he’d made her think there was a safe place. Of course he’d subtly manipulate her- dangling the idea over her head since she was fifteen. Of course he’d looked at her and known, known like he seemed to know everything-  
Scott whines loudly as Stiles fights off hysteria. She forces herself back into the present. The people who caught them where probably sending people to block the roads leading out of here, and she has no idea what kind of number she might be up against beyond the small group that confronted her. She makes and internal show of weighing her options, but she knows she’s too worn down and tired, and fucking hungry, to win another encounter tonight. Instead, Stiles ditches the van as soon as they’re far away enough and finds an alley to hide in. Hunters always check the forest.   
She hudles with Scott behind a dumpster strong enough to mask their scent. There was a packet of skittles and a bottle of water in the van, but she can’t give Scott either until he changes back and she can tell he’s thirsty. At least they got a chance to eat before the crazed minions came busting in. Seriously, how did Peter, fucking Peter, get trained hunters on his side? Scott presses his nose into her shoulder and snuffles, curling up around her. She presses her face into his fur.  
She tells him a story about mermaids but embellishes it with a wolf Prince, a badass mermaid princess who trades her voice for legs because she wanted to see the world, an a travelling van family who take her and the Prince on adventures and teach the mermaid how to play the drums. She can practically feel Scott rolling his eyes when she gives the mermaid a buzz cut and a hunky Romanian girlfriend but she keeps going to the part where the wolf Prince learns to fly and then she feels him drift gently off to sleep.   
Stiles closes her eyes and imagines the sea.


	3. Why She Sleeps With One Eye Open

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I once again establish that Stiles is great.

Fighter or no, there was no way Stiles’ and Scott got out of Beacon Hills last night. Allison made sure of it, used every resource and strategy she had to find them. They weren’t so much as spotted, but that meant they’d have had to lie low, which meant there was no way they got out.   
Allison’s team are not so sure, but this shifts quickly when they run the pair to the ground outside an old car lot. Stiles wants to fight, she can tell, but this time she has no element of surprise, the wolves are sitting out, so she can’t play them against each other, and Allison is in fine form. She can feel the rush of the challenge, can hardly stop herself from grinning when Stiles’ looks up from the form of the wolf she is huddling protectively over. It will be tricky getting through her, for all they have the advantage. Allison runs through strategies in her mind, but Stiles’ interrupts her by standing.   
“Wait.” She says, “Please.”   
Chris steps forward raising his gun.  
“At least wait until he turns back. Please.” Stiles says desperately  
“Dad.” Allison hisses. She feels the tension coming back, the threads slipping away. God, this is so hard when they don’t have her back. She feels a migraine start to emerge.   
“Please” Stiles repeats more softly. “You can do it, just. Let me say goodbye. Let me hold him. Please.”  
Maybe its frustration, maybe its compassion, maybe respect at the way Stiles has fought and has not stopped fighting. Allison does not allow herself a moment to second guess.   
“Check her for weapons, get them in the van.” She hopes the exhaustion doesn’t show in her voice.   
No one is happy with her as they depart in their various cars, leaving Allison alone with her father, two of her team members, and the two fugitives. Stiles sits in the corner and wraps her arms around the wolf, burying her face into his fur. She starts singing, softly and slightly out of tune. I said, hey, girl with one eye… get your filthy fingers, out of my pie…  
“Not exactly a nice goodbye.” Jackson snarks. Stiles ignores him.  
It seems to take forever for the shift to start. Allison watches Stiles closely, waiting for the moment when she would see a chance and take it. It was impossible for her to get out of the van outnumbered and unarmed, but Allison would bet anything that Stiles could do some serious damage trying. She was so focused on Stiles she didn’t immediately understand why her dad was hissing,  
“Son of a Bitch” in a broken voice.  
Allison blinks. The wolf has turned, but he’s so small, a child in threadbare pajamas with his face was buried in Stiles’ shoulder. He didn’t look older than twelve. Allison turned to look at her father. He looks horrified, but his gun is still trained on the little boy. She opens her mouth, wants to say something, but then suddenly she can’t speak. She can’t do anything but stand and watch her father point his gun at a crying little boy.   
Stiles stands slowly, keeping him in her arms. She mumbles something in his ear and he shakes his head violently. She strokes his hair and whispers again, gently. Slowly, the boy turns to face them. His wide, brown eyes met Chris’s.   
“Fuck” Chris drops his gun and throws himself violently against the wall.   
Stiles slumps down the wall, kid in her arms, and laughs.


	4. The Bookshop

Of three things Derek was absolutely positive: One, Peter is a real motherfucker. Two, it was way too early for her to be awake the morning after a full moon night. And three, this whole godforsaken mess should not have ever become their problem in the first place.  
Also Scott is a heartwarming little sweetheart and from the look in Talia’s eyes, they’re definitely keeping him. Although the girl, Stiles, seems to have other ideas. She’s watching Talia like she’s some kind of snake-person and keeps a tight hold of Scotts arm like he’s her prey. Derek fights down a huff of annoyance. Her mother is not the one advocating for Scott’s immediate execution.   
“He’s still a murder” Jackson says, “we should-”  
“Shut up Jackson” Allison cuts him off. He sneers.  
“You’ve been spending too much time with that” he gestures at Erica, “we should have put her down when it happened, the real Erica would have wanted us too.”  
“Out.” Allison says. He stomps out before anyone tackles him, which is probably a blessing.   
“I’ll kill all of you” Stiles says softly. Derek growls. Talia sighs and motions desperately at Laura for coffee. Laura hands her mother a steaming cup of fresh, black coffee in the World’s Best Alpha mug Cora had made in primary school. Derek remembers helping her paint it. He focuses on the amusing confusion of the other parents and the proud, clay smeared grin Cora had given their mother. She takes some deep breaths and focuses on puppy piles, morning cuddles and the easy flirtations between her parents, movie marathons with her sisters and Erica. She takes another deep breath as her anchor centers her and lets the anger and anxiety go. Her mother can handle this. She’s never been one who minded problems. Out of line succubus and disproportionately vengeful fairies are very much her cup of tea. Mum is a born Alpha, a small business owner, and managed her, Laura, Cora and now Erica just fine. Problems are her forte; they kind of have to be.   
Stiles stares at Talia like she’s threatening seven generations of her descendants if Scott gets so much as a paper cut in her general vicinity. Cora, Erica and Laura are gravitating around her with quiet, sadistic amusement like when Derek tried to hide her date with a pretty brunette last week. Her pack can handle this, but she doesn’t necessarily want to see it. Derek knows that, despite her tendency to come across as ‘the scary one’ (thanks to her eyebrows and ill-fated involvement in street fighting during her high school years – she had kept her werewolf powers on lockdown via mountain ash laced jewelry but Talia had thrown a fit anyway) Derek is still the only one out of all of them who has any kind of genuine moral code. Erica fit in so perfectly with her sisters that Derek had taken to sleeping on the roof whenever their eyes were looking particularly glint-y.   
Like right now. Surrounding Stiles in what Derek is sure will turn into some kind of epic hazing ritual very shortly because, of course, the thing where she stabbed Erica and almost got them all killed has somehow made the pack like her.   
Laura catches her eye and smirks. Derek reconsiders her life choices.   
“You’ll need to keep her on lockdown” Allison was saying, “I’ll talk to Lydia and get them registered as your new foster children. We found birth certificates on the girl but they’re definitely fake.” Stiles makes an incredulous noise, “They’re not Lydia standard but they should fool the system.”  
Talia stares at her. So does Derek. He can feel Erica smirking, she’d been saying that Allison would be different since she joined them.   
“Oh please” Allison says, “I know there’s no way Erica hasn’t told you all about Lydia. If you didn’t already know.”   
Cora chooses that moment to grab Scott by the arm and loudly yell, “HAVE YOU SEEN THE STORE?”   
As Derek tries to stop the tiny ball of fury that is Stiles from eviscerating her sister (and gets punched in the face for her troubles) she wonders if Cora truly believed that would work, or if she somehow predicted it would come to this and did it with malicious intent. Derek suspects the later.   
Stiles calms down long enough for the Argents to wrap things up and leave.   
“You and Scott can sleep in Derek’s room” Talia says, “I’ll set up an air mattress.”   
“Where will I sleep?” Derek asks, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.  
“You can share with Stiles, can’t you?”  
Derek refrains from pointing out that the person she’s supposed to be sharing a bed with literally just punched her in the face. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt a werewolf, but Derek suspects that if Stiles had wanted to hurt her, she totally would have. She’s not sure if that makes it better or worse. She can feel Stiles eyeing her like she’s making up her mind or something, and then she nods.   
“I can deal with that” she says, nodding at Derek companiably like she didn’t just punch her in the fucking face. Then she smiles. “I’m a bit twitchy right now what with the whole ‘you all just tried to kill my brother thing’.”  
She nods again like that was an adequate apology for totally unjustified physical assault and drags Scott and Cora out of the room, saying “So, what’s this I hear about a store?”  
“Mom.” Derek says, “Is this a good idea?”  
Talia sighs, “What do you suggest Dee?”  
Derek doesn’t know, but she thinks they could probably move to France if they really put their minds to it. She hears they have good cheese.   
Of three things Derek was absolutely positive: One, Peter is a real motherfucker. Two, it was way too early for her to be awake the morning after a full moon night. And three, this whole godforsaken mess should not have ever become their problem in the first place.  
Also Scott is a heartwarming little sweetheart and from the look in Talia’s eyes, they’re definitely keeping him. Although the girl, Stiles, seems to have other ideas. She’s watching Talia like she’s some kind of snake-person and keeps a tight hold of Scotts arm like he’s her prey. Derek fights down a huff of annoyance. Her mother is not the one advocating for Scott’s immediate execution.   
“He’s still a murder” Jackson says, “we should-”  
“Shut up Jackson” Allison cuts him off. He sneers.  
“You’ve been spending too much time with that” he gestures at Erica, “we should have put her down when it happened, the real Erica would have wanted us too.”  
“Out.” Allison says. He stomps out before anyone tackles him, which is probably a blessing.   
“I’ll kill all of you” Stiles says softly. Derek growls. Talia sighs and motions desperately at Laura for coffee. Laura hands her mother a steaming cup of fresh, black coffee in the World’s Best Alpha mug Cora had made in primary school. Derek remembers helping her paint it. He focuses on the amusing confusion of the other parents and the proud, clay smeared grin Cora had given their mother. She takes some deep breaths and focuses on puppy piles, morning cuddles and the easy flirtations between her parents, movie marathons with her sisters and Erica. She takes another deep breath as her anchor centers her and lets the anger and anxiety go. Her mother can handle this. She’s never been one who minded problems. Out of line succubus and disproportionately vengeful fairies are very much her cup of tea. Mum is a born Alpha, a small business owner, and managed her, Laura, Cora and now Erica just fine. Problems are her forte; they kind of have to be.   
Stiles stares at Talia like she’s threatening seven generations of her descendants if Scott gets so much as a paper cut in her general vicinity. Cora, Erica and Laura are gravitating around her with quiet, sadistic amusement like when Derek tried to hide her date with a pretty brunette last week. Her pack can handle this, but she doesn’t necessarily want to see it. Derek knows that, despite her tendency to come across as ‘the scary one’ (thanks to her eyebrows and ill-fated involvement in street fighting during her high school years – she had kept her werewolf powers on lockdown via mountain ash laced jewelry but Talia had thrown a fit anyway) Derek is still the only one out of all of them who has any kind of genuine moral code. Erica fit in so perfectly with her sisters that Derek had taken to sleeping on the roof whenever their eyes were looking particularly glint-y.   
Like right now. Surrounding Stiles in what Derek is sure will turn into some kind of epic hazing ritual very shortly because, of course, the thing where she stabbed Erica and almost got them all killed has somehow made the pack like her.   
Laura catches her eye and smirks. Derek reconsiders her life choices.   
“You’ll need to keep her on lockdown” Allison was saying, “I’ll talk to Lydia and get them registered as your new foster children. We found birth certificates on the girl but they’re definitely fake.” Stiles makes an incredulous noise, “They’re not Lydia standard but they should fool the system.”  
Talia stares at her. So does Derek. He can feel Erica smirking, she’d been saying that Allison would be different since she joined them.   
“Oh please” Allison says, “I know there’s no way Erica hasn’t told you all about Lydia. If you didn’t already know.”   
Cora chooses that moment to grab Scott by the arm and loudly yell, “HAVE YOU SEEN THE STORE?”   
As Derek tries to stop the tiny ball of fury that is Stiles from eviscerating her sister (and gets punched in the face for her troubles) she wonders if Cora truly believed that would work, or if she somehow predicted it would come to this and did it with malicious intent. Derek suspects the later.   
Stiles calms down long enough for the Argents to wrap things up and leave.   
“You and Scott can sleep in Derek’s room” Talia says, “I’ll set up an air mattress.”   
“Where will I sleep?” Derek asks, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.  
“You can share with Stiles, can’t you?”  
Derek refrains from pointing out that the person she’s supposed to be sharing a bed with literally just punched her in the face. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt a werewolf, but Derek suspects that if Stiles had wanted to hurt her, she totally would have. She’s not sure if that makes it better or worse. She can feel Stiles eyeing her like she’s making up her mind or something, and then she nods.   
“I can deal with that” she says, nodding at Derek companiably like she didn’t just punch her in the fucking face. Then she smiles. “I’m a bit twitchy right now what with the whole ‘you all just tried to kill my brother thing’.”  
She nods again like that was an adequate apology for totally unjustified physical assault and drags Scott and Cora out of the room, saying “So, what’s this I hear about a store?”  
“Mom.” Derek says, “Is this a good idea?”  
Talia sighs, “What do you suggest Dee?”  
Derek doesn’t know, but she thinks they could probably move to France if they really put their minds to it. She hears they have good cheese.


	5. Erica Gets Naked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (elsie is a porn tease)

Stiles and Scott have been staying with The Hales for three weeks, and so far Erica has learnt only five things about Stiles to report back to Allison.  
“She’s hot” she’d said, after the first meeting, and Allison had rolled her eyes.  
“I need more than the obvious, Erica. Has she said anything about what happened with the murder victim?”  
“She won’t talk to Talia, and she acts like we're all out to get Scott. He’s fitting in just fine, but if we ask him about before he just freezes up. Then Stiles goes into mega bitch mode for a day or two.”   
She shudders. If Erica is shuddering in the face of mega bitching, the case is serious.  
“I refuse to believe that little boy killed someone.” Allison says.  
“It’s possible he did.” Erica says, “If no one ever taught him control. He’s young, and easily scared.”  
“I swear there’s more to this.”  
“You think too much” Erica stretches her legs out on the bed, spreading them open slightly and sending Allison a wicked grin. Allison smirks back from her seat on the other end but doesn’t move.  
“Nothing else?” She asks softly. Erica shrugs.  
“She’s good with the customers. Talia’s got her working in the bookshop. It’s hilarious.”  
“Why?”  
Erica grins.  
“Derek” She says, and laughs maniacally.  
Allison chooses not to ask.   
“Hey” she says, when Erica finally sets aside her paper and rolls over, trapping Allison beneath her spread limbs, “I was thinking I should talk to Talia about this, set up a meeting to discuss what she’s gathered and where we should go from here. Do you think I should sent her a note asking if I can stop by?”  
Erica had mentioned more than a few times how upset Talia got with hunters constantly stopping by her house without warning, like they owned the place. Erica nods carefully.   
“I think that… that might be okay?”  
Allison thought for a moment.  
“What if I invited her over instead? Would that be… I don’t know, rude? Like a summons? Or a show of good faith, like we’re equals?”  
Erica shrugged, “Try neutral ground? Like a coffee shop, or Lydia’s place?”  
“Great” Allison laughed, “Perfect. Thanks, Erica”  
She leans up on her elbows to bring their lips together, but Erica hesitates for a second.  
“She’d like it better if you asked her.”  
“What?”  
“I mean, if you asked her to choose a location. Maybe. I don’t know.”  
Allison freezes. Erica snorts loudly and rolls her eyes.  
“Doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it, it was just an idea. Jesus.”  
“It’s just…”  
“Fuck. Fuck, Allison!”  
“I’m just saying… you used to be a hunter, you know…”  
“And now I’m a wolf, and I’m hunted. Go figure.”  
Allison moves across the bed to face her.  
“I’m trying”   
Erica holds out her arms and Allison snuggles down next to her and nuzzles her face into the blonde hair falling over her shoulder.   
“I’m sorry.” She whispers.  
“I get it.”  
They lie quietly for a while, Erica stroking Allison’s hair.   
“Do you think they’ll stay?” Allison murmurs, “once we work this out?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“If I recruit Stiles, that’s another person with us who doesn't look down on you.”  
“I bet your Daddy will be real pleased.”  
“Dad’s not in charge anymore. I am.” Allison sits up and stares Erica down, “and I think you should take your clothes off.”  
“Bossy, bossy.” Erica smirks. “You know you’re not in charge of me, little girl.”  
Allison begs to differ, but Erica is really hard to argue with when she’s getting naked.


	6. Room Sharing

Derek is done with her life, done with her pack, done with everything that’s not moving to France to become a professional weight trainer and live in a flat above a cheese shop. She’s been working all the same shifts as Stiles since she got there and so far the girl has somehow managed to do next to no actual work while charming all the customers so expertly they all tell Talia she’s the best worker she’s ever hired.   
“You have to take all your shifts with Stiles, she likes you” Laura says amusedly as Derek makes yet another attempt to escape her imminent doom.  
“This morning she threatened to kill me with a spoon for hogging the blankets”  
“See? She talks to you” Laura grins, “You know, given your muscle mass you really shouldn’t be intimidated by a scrawny little thing like Stiles.”  
Derek doesn’t go for the obvious ‘Hey, I grew up with CORA’ in favor of raising an eyebrow and snorting. Laura rolls her eyes.   
“I’m the manager and I say when you have shifts. Suck it up puppy.”  
Derek sucks it up. Derek does a fantastic job of sucking it up, because Derek is a mature adult and a gym junkie and an ex street fighter. Derek is fucking scary, and Stiles doesn’t need to know that she is in fact a huge pushover.  
Stiles totally knows. Stiles is completely unimpressed by Derek’s carefully cultivated scowl and glare-y eyebrow maneuver, because she just raises an eyebrow, leans back in the cashier chair and puts her feet up on the counter.  
“You can’t do that” Derek growls. Stiles ignores her.   
She swears at some point she sees Erica pausing at the window to laugh at her on her way to Starbucks or something. Sure enough, half an hour later Erica comes waltzing back in with two delicious smelling styrofoam cups and a wicked gleam in her eyes.  
“Hey Stiles.” She says, and Stiles smiles and nods a return greeting. Derek is stumped. Especially when Erica holds out one cup of delicious caramel- Derek knows it’s a caramel latte, she can smell the perfection from all the way across the room- and passes it to Stiles, before gently sipping the other. Stiles grins.   
“Thanks Erica,” She says. Derek gapes, not just at the fact that Stiles is now talking to Erica, or that Erica just bought Stiles coffee. She had never seen Stiles smile before. It was like watching the moon rising. She decides that Stiles needed to smile all the fucking time.   
To start, Derek began an internal catalogue of things that made Stiles smile, or at least relax her face and shoulders a little. Number one was Scott, but only when Talia wasn’t around. Number two was coffee and/or Erica, and number three was the daisies brought into the store by one of Cora’s many awkward high school suitors. Derek promised to pass them along. Instead she got a vase and put them on the counter near Stiles’ feet instead.   
When the customers get in, Stiles in all bright smiles and easy laughter, but the tension doesn’t leave her and the smiles never reach her eyes, so Derek doesn’t count it.   
Stiles does seem to be warming up to her though. She hasn’t stopped threatening to kill her in scarily specific ways for minor things like spilling coffee on her shirt or eating the last of the cereal, but she’s started up this habit of chatting to her while Derek does stock take, or shelving, or any of the other jobs Stiles is supposed to be helping her with.  
Derek doesn’t say much, but she listens. She decides she likes listening. She likes shelving, too, and she always hating working with customers anyway.


	7. Coyote and Snowflake Pony

Derek stands outside her room with an arm full of clothes. She takes a few deep breaths. Derek is a body builder. She doesn’t get intimidated by lanky girls with moles and pretty brown eyes and   
Derek walks into the room before someone walks past and embarrasses her. Stiles is sitting on the air mattress, reading something Derek is sure she took from the bookshop. Stiles never buys anything with her money, just pitches in her (and Scotts, even though Talia said it was unnecessary) share in household expenses. That’s why Derek has an armful of thrift shop clothing and forty five less dollars in her savings. She dumps them next to Stiles on the mattress.  
“You’ve been wearing the same clothes since you got here” and they look like you stole them from various clotheslines, she doesn’t say.   
Stiles raises an eyebrow.   
“You smell” Derek adds, for good measure.   
She half expects Stiles to kill her, but instead the girl laughs and pokes at the clothes pile.  
“Doesn’t the rest of your family have, like, a super evil plan to force me into some new clothes?”   
Derek’s family have various evil plans, and a betting pool on which will succeed, but she just shrugs.  
“You’re not like them” Stiles says, “You’re harmless.”  
Derek growls on principle.  
“Dude.” Stiles says, “That would have scared me five years ago. These days, not so much. I have Seen Things” She wiggles her eyebrows.  
Derek swallows.   
“Things?” She asks after a too long pause.  
“Peter eating” Stiles laughs, “Not a pretty sight. At least some Hales know how to close their mouths. You must know what I’m talking about.”  
“You know Peter? My uncle?”  
Stiles’ face shuts down instantly.  
“Don’t mess with me” she says, “I know what you’re doing.”  
“I’m not doing anything.”  
“He’s coming here,” Stiles spits, “I was going to ask you to help us.”  
Derek has never seen Stiles truly loose her composure, even on that first night, and it’s terrifying.   
“Yeah, so Mom can ream him.” Derek shouts frantically, “because he sent us after a rouge wolf without even finding out anything first, or he would have known Scott was a child and had never been trained-”  
“Derek.” Stiles is suddenly calm, standing right in her space. “Do you really not know?”  
Derek stares back at her.   
“Know what?” She asks, “What happened with Peter, Stiles?”  
Stiles falls back onto the mattress. Derek sits beside her and for a while, neither say anything.  
“Look,” Derek says, “I’ll tell you what happened with Peter here. He was Talia’s beta, and he lived with his daughter next door to us. He and Mom ran the bookshop together. He once started a prank war with Laura that lasted five years.”  
Derek laughs, but Stiles is not looking impressed so she moves on quickly.  
“Anyway, we’ve never had a lot of money in the family. I think we did a couple of generations back, we produced a lot of amazing athletes for the obvious reasons, and werewolves make some amazing bodyguards and all that kind of shit… but then hunters started using that as an indicator, and it got too dangerous. We can’t really use our abilities publically because it could get us killed. And being traditionally responsible for every magical grievance and mishap in our area tends to be kind of distracting from nine-to-five jobs. Mom and Peter struck a deal with the Argents before Laura was born, so that we could stay in Beacon Hills without being attacked by them. That’s why we have to work with them.”  
“For them, you mean.”   
Derek nods.  
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right” She says softly. “But then when Laura was thirteen they said she had to fight too. Mom was furious, but they didn’t give us a choice. It was the same with all of us. Malia, my cousin, she was smaller than the rest of us and she never had a lot of control. She hated the Argents. Especially this one woman, she wanted us all dead. You could tell. One moon night Malia fell behind the rest of us and Kate kicked her into a tree.”  
“I know Malia’s small but how do you kick a wolf into a tree?”   
Derek shrugs.  
“Malia tried to kill her.” She says softly, “Mom stopped her, which is the only reason she’s still alive. You’ve seen her, though?”  
Stiles nods, “wicked scar.”  
So she does know. Derek thinks, there’s no doubt. She’s met them. Stiles watches her and continues with false casualness,  
“All down her face, she can’t see out of her left eye, her shoulder is messed up. Looks like knives.”  
“It was.” Derek stares at her hands, remembering Malia’s screams and her mothers desperate attempts at intervention. “Peter wanted to kill them all, but Mom wouldn’t let him. So they moved a town over and started a pack with a bunch of omegas. The Argents insisted they never come back. Peter came back once.”   
Derek shuddered, “That’s why our old house got burned down. It’s why we currently have six people living in a small flat above a bookshop. Like I said before; we don’t have a lot of money, but the Argents do. They invest in this town, they can pretty much do what they want.”   
Stiles nods, “I know the type.”  
“Yeah.”  
“He’s coming, though?”  
“Allison said he could. Requested it, actually. She promised that he wouldn’t be harmed, which can’t have gone over well with her subordinates.”   
“Interesting.”   
“Yeah, that’s Allison,” Derek sighs, “I don’t know what her plan is but at least Mom will be able to put him in his place a little.”  
“I don’t trust Talia” Stiles blurts out.  
Derek stares at her.  
“No, listen.” Stiles says, “I know Talia, I know her because I understand her. Your whole pack- Laura, Cora, Erica… they’re all vicious. They won’t hesitate. She raised that, she encourages it”  
“Stiles…” Derek warns.  
“You’re not like them Derek. You’re like a werebunny with abs. I trust you, and I need you to help me out of this situation.”  
“But… they’re pack”   
Stiles sneers.  
“I. Don’t. Trust. Pack.”   
Derek stares at her.  
“You need to help me get out of here before Peter comes. They trust you, I can handle the rest.”  
“If you just tell me… ”  
“I don’t have to. You’ll help me.”  
“I…” Derek trails off, because Stiles is pinning her with a look.  
“You’ll do it.” Stiles says calmly, “because I’m telling you, there is a really good reason I need to leave, and not explain to anyone. You’re scared I’m telling the truth, which is good because I am. And you’re scared of what I’ll do to get us out if you don’t do as I ask. You don’t want to see anyone get hurt.”  
“Fuck. Fine.”  
Stiles smiles at her, a broad, genuine smile.  
“Thanks for the clothes,” she says.  
Turns out Stiles’ plan involves Lydia, which is ironic because Lydia’s unsettling ability to know all things happening in Beacon Hills, and quite a few other places, at all times was the main thing they were counting on to stop Stiles and Scott from slipping away.   
“I like Stiles” Lydia says, by way of explaining her betrayal.   
“You like us” Derek scowls.   
“Stiles impresses me.” Lydia says.   
“Werewolves don’t?”  
Lydia just laughs and flings her scarf over her shoulder. The four of them are in the bookstore, Stiles, Derek, Lydia and Scott, whom Lydia just brought over from school. Derek doesn’t ask how she got him out early. She’s Lydia Martin, it’s always better not to ask.  
“Hey,” She says as they head for the door.   
Stiles looks back impatiently, “What?”  
There is a long pause.   
“Be careful” She says lamely. Stiles laughs, and they go.  
(Talia is furious.   
Allison is furious.  
Derek will probably be on probation for the rest of her life.)  
Derek sits alone in her room. It feels too big now which is ridiculous and stupid because it’s tiny, and the lack of two distinctive sets of heartbeats should not change that.   
It probably wouldn’t hurt so much if her entire pack weren’t going to be absolutely furious with her as soon as they realise Scott and Stiles have gone. More so even than the street fighting incident. She’s commiserating over how typical it is that she would wish and wish for people to leave her alone, only to have them do it in the most painful way possible to the point where you wish they would go back to not leaving you alone. Then her mobile rings. Derek stares at it. Coyote, the screen says. Malia.   
“Hello?” Derek says. She and Malia had been close before they up and left (they had a whole convoluted storyline surrounding them as superheros as kids which is where the coyote thing came from, Malia insisted on Derek being called snowflake pony on the basis that it was hilarious, which Derek was always somewhat bitter about)  
“Dee.” She says. “My dad has Stiles.”


	8. Pack

Stiles breathes in, and out, and lists the things she still has. The knowledge that Scott is safe. She takes another breathe, and tries not to cry. Peter’s beta stares at her from the passenger seat. She hates these creepy wolves and their creepy sniffing habits and the way they crawl all over her, like they own her. Like they always know exactly how she feels. She spent years learning control and they still catch her off guard sometimes. Like now, tied up on the backseat trying to fight off whatever Lydia injected her with.  
“You shouldn’t blame her.” Peter says, “She couldn’t help herself. Literally. Poor girl, such a waste.”  
He keeps waxing poetic about the price of power and Stiles tries very hard to kill him with her brain.  
“… I blame myself for this, you know.” He says suddenly, “you running off like that. It wasn’t smart, the way I treated Scott. He was amusing, but I should have known it would set you against me. I underestimated you, or I over estimate myself. I don’t know which is worse.”   
He sighs, suddenly the image of a long suffering parent.   
“You know I turned Scott to get to you, don’t you Stiles?”  
When he was eight, Stiles tries to say, you sick bastard. God knows how he survived.  
“It was a risk.” Peter admits, “But he was necessary. I needed you to think I could help him. I should have helped him- I got jealous, I’ll admit. You just care about him so much. It bothered me. I know better now.”  
“You’re insane” Stiles spits out, “You… crazy… manipulative…

Peter hushes her.   
“We're almost home,” he says. “You’ll start using your spark for me now, won’t you Stiles? Because Lydia is taking Scott back to Talia as we speak, and my sister will do anything I ask. You understand?”  
Stiles nods.   
Sometimes I have to tell people what they want to hear. She’d explained to Scott, but I’ll always be looking for a way out. And I’ll always find one, even if it takes a while, I’ll never stop until you’re safe, okay?   
She’d picked a song to sing to him, so he’d always know she was lying. It was a promise that she’d never give up on him. But she’d picked it as a promise to herself as well, that one day, when Scott was safe, she would make Peter suffer.  
“Scotts safe,” Peter says, “So long as I let him be.”  
Stiles nods again. She almost smiles.  
   
Talia stands with Laura, Erica, and Boyd at the entrance to Peters house. Malia lets them in. Her shoulders are shaking.  
“Where’s Dee?” She asks.  
“I left her at home. She needs to learn a lesson about secrets.”  
Malia nods and they follow her in to the kitchen.  
“I love dad.” She says, “but he’s not a good person.”  
Talia rubs her arm.  
“I know, darling. I know.”  
When the car pulls up, Talia walks out to greet her brother.   
She’s halfway out the door when the screaming starts.


	9. Mermaid Buzzcut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last one!

Peter wakes up from his coma the day Allison and Erica get engaged. No one mentions it to Stiles, or Lydia, but they know. They probably won’t do anything, for the sake of Pack relations and keeping the Hales happy. But then again, they might, and the Hales might pretend to themselves that Peter went on a long holiday without telling anyone, or just run afoul of another of his many enemies, to keep themselves happy. Malia is unlikely to adjust, so they probably won’t. Probably.   
“Death isn’t as good as life imprisonment anyway,” Lydia says, and Stiles nods seriously.  
Stiles has warmed up to Talia since she refrained from dragging her off Peter until after he was well and truly comatose. No one else knows about that except for Lydia, but Derek suspects its why. She can see it in the set of her mothers shoulder- an added burden of guilty defiance. She’s glad it seems to put Stiles somewhat at ease though. She’s still working at the bookshop, and she and Scott moved in with Lydia until they can find their own apartment.   
Stiles comes into work now in geeky t shirts and cute skirts and dangly bracelets and nailpolish. When her hair starts growing all floppy over her eyes, she shaves it down again.  
“I just like it better” She says, even though Derek hadn’t asked. She’d just found her a towel and her dads electric razor.  
Derek smiles.  
“I like it too” She says. (She’d like it floppy as well, but it’s not like it mattered)  
The next day, Stiles paints her toenails pink as she leans them against the counter and Derek stacks shelves.   
“Lydia wants me to go into business with her.” Stiles announces suddenly.  
“Lydia doesn’t own a – oh”  
Stiles smirks, “yeah.” She says, “Should I do it?”  
“What… kind of… exactly… are we...?”   
Derek stops. She knows enough about Lydia’s personal enterprises to guess that what she knows is very, very little. Nominally, the woman works in public records. She also has a large amount of money that didn’t come from either of her parents, and far too much information at her fingertips. Derek isn’t sure she wants to know more than that. Lydia once offered her a job as a bodyguard, but she felt like it might be counterproductive to have a bodyguard who’s absolutely terrified of you.   
“She was impressed by the ‘potential’ of the fakes you guys grabbed from me. Also she thinks I’m intuitive and she’s done with being surrounded by idiots. Although she hates my taste in shoes.”  
Stiles is wearing off-brand sneakers so old they look like someone strung together two pieces of fabric together and called it a day.   
“Shut up.” Stiles says.  
“I didn’t say anything.”  
“You usually don’t,” Stiles smiles, “but I get you.”  
Derek kind of thinks she does.


End file.
